Cedar Podcasts

Sanjiv Anand, Chairman, Cedar Management Consulting International

Most organizations fail not because of poor strategy, but due to weak execution, with failure rates reaching 70–90% in India. Traditional management systems overly focus on budgets, often disconnecting daily actions from long-term strategy. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) addresses this gap by translating strategy into linked objectives, measures, targets and initiatives across four perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth.

The BSC roadmap involves three steps. First, a strategy map identifies 20–25 critical objectives showing how non-financial drivers enable financial outcomes. Second, the BSC defines 30–40 lead and lag measures, assigns ownership, sets targets and aligns key initiatives. Third, the BSC is embedded into management processes through regular reviews, reporting and cascading scorecards.

When integrated with planning and activity-based budgeting, the BSC shifts budgets from short-term financial control to strategic resource allocation. This alignment ensures shared ownership, clear priorities and coordinated execution making strategy implementation far more effective.

Sanjiv Anand, Chairman, Cedar Management Consulting International

The Covid-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for banks, severely impacting profitability, asset quality, liquidity, fee income and customer behavior across retail, SME, corporate and wealth segments. Falling interest rates, stressed sectors, rising NPAs, shrinking deposits and declining branch usage have disrupted traditional revenue and cost models, making “business as usual” untenable.

Yet, this crisis represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for banks to accelerate digital transformation. Banks must rapidly reassess sector exposures, re-segment clients, strengthen workout and credit risk teams, redesign scorecards, and protect liability books. A sharp focus on digitizing transaction banking, especially for SMEs and corporates, is critical to retaining customers and unlocking value.

Digital channels, cloud, cybersecurity, automation, AI and FinTech partnerships can drive resilience, efficiency and customer engagement. Ultimately, banks must rethink their operating and cost models from the ground up, embracing zero-based budgeting and digital-first strategies. Those that act decisively can emerge stronger, while laggards risk losing relevance.

Robust quality assurance (QA) is critical to the success of large core banking transformations, where banks often face tough trade-offs between speed and system reliability. A well-planned, integrated QA approach reduces cutover risk in these complex, high-stakes programs. QA must go beyond basic user acceptance testing to include factory testing, system integration, UAT, regression, performance and security testing, ensuring coverage reflects real end-user experience.

Timing and sequencing are vital: testing must precede training, and training must precede go-live. Typically, 3–4 rounds of UAT using migrated, production-like data are recommended. Ownership should remain with the bank, while execution can be supported by external specialists to improve efficiency.

Effective QA balances depth, duration and exit criteria. Large programs often require tens of thousands of test cases, stringent defect thresholds and clear acceptance metrics. Investing deeply in QA upfront ensures smoother cutover, stronger user confidence and long-term system stability.

The rise of FinTech incubators has led to diverse accelerator and lab models designed to help start-ups scale. Accelerators typically offer time-bound, intensive programs (3–6 months) focused on mentoring, networking and early-stage funding, often in exchange for equity. Unlike traditional incubators, they emphasize business development over long-term physical infrastructure and aim to make start-ups investment-ready quickly.

Three main accelerator types have emerged. Matchmaker accelerators, often corporate-led, connect start-ups with potential customers rather than offering funding. Investor-led accelerators focus on identifying scalable ventures and typically provide seed capital for equity, bridging the gap to follow-on investment. Ecosystem accelerators, usually government-backed, aim to stimulate regional or sectoral start-up ecosystems and may support very early-stage ideas.

FinTech Labs extend these models by enabling collaboration with banks, regulators and investors, offering product validation, proof-of-concepts and market access. Overall, accelerators help shorten start-up journeys, driving faster growth or failure while enabling corporates to stay innovative and competitive.

Modern banking success depends not just on customer segmentation but on delivering differentiated, high-quality experiences. Traditional segmentation by wealth or income Mass Retail, Affluent, HNI and Ultra HNI remains relevant, but banks are increasingly complementing this with demographic, behavioral and micro-segmentation driven by advanced analytics. Understanding customer preferences, transaction behavior and life-stage needs enables more precise, predictive engagement.

The HNI segment, comprising around 17 million individuals globally, is especially valuable due to its stability, deposit strength and fee income potential. While wealth management remains central, service differentiation and experience are decisive. Customers increasingly expect advisory-led, holistic offerings supported by seamless omnichannel access and digital tools.

FinTech disruption and generational wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials are accelerating the need for personalized, digital-first engagement. Hygiene factors such as mobile banking, PFM tools and integrated channels are no longer differentiators; their absence is more noticeable than their presence. Banks that anticipate changing needs, leverage data intelligently and adapt experiences quickly will sustain profitable growth in the new age.
  

Banks must modernize legacy core banking systems to enable innovation, meet rising customer expectations, and respond quickly to change. Traditional cores are rigid, fragmented, and unable to support true end-to-end digital transformation, even when modern channels exist. A future-proof “Digital Core Banking” approach embeds digitisation across the bank, not just at the front end.

The Digital Core Banking model rests on key principles: hollowing the core to act mainly as a system of record; adopting componentised, modular architectures; using microservices for agility, faster upgrades, and lower costs; ensuring cloud readiness for scalability, resilience, and efficiency; and enabling open banking through APIs. Cloud-based, SaaS-enabled cores allow banks to reduce costs while increasing flexibility and speed to market, while open banking fosters collaboration with fintechs and enhances competition.

Institutions that remain dependent on legacy architectures risk falling behind digital challengers. Core modernisation is a multi-year journey, typically requiring 6–12 months of planning and 2–3 years of phased implementation to fully realise benefits.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated ASEAN’s digital transformation, building on the region’s early adoption of digital banking and fintech innovation. ASEAN’s 10 nations show uneven banking penetration, with over 150 million unbanked adults and a young, mobile-first population, creating strong demand for digital financial services. Regulatory support has been pivotal, with countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand promoting digital bank licences and regulatory sandboxes, including cross-border initiatives via AFIN.

Key fintech focus areas are payments and remittances, alternative digital lending, and security and regtech. These align with regional needs such as low POS penetration, strong remittance flows, underbanked consumers, and high SME density. Venture capital investment has grown rapidly, alongside rising collaboration between banks and fintechs through APIs, open banking and innovation labs.

Post-Covid, demand for digital-only banking, payments, lending and trade finance is expected to surge. Lower adoption barriers, regulatory engagement and technology readiness position ASEAN for accelerated, scalable fintech-led growth.

A Program Management Office (PMO) is critical to the success of strategic initiatives such as new product launches, market expansion, cost optimization, or large IT programs. A PMO need not always be permanent; it can be temporary or project-specific. However, it creates maximum value when it has enterprise-wide authority, reports to senior leadership, and aligns initiatives with organizational strategy.

PMOs typically operate at three levels: advisory (strategic alignment and guidance), governance (standards, tools, and oversight), and execution (hands-on planning, monitoring, and stakeholder management). As PMO maturity increases, it evolves from a reactive role to a standardized, integrated function driving innovation and continuous improvement.

Effective communication, proactive risk management, and people management are central to PMO success. PMOs deliver value through structured initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure processes. Key benefits include strategic alignment, optimized resource allocation, cross-functional visibility, and consistent, high-quality execution. Any initiative with significant investment, stakeholder impact, or strategic importance should fall under the PMO’s purview.

In this episode, we turn to Saudi Arabia and examine how its banking sector is evolving alongside the Kingdom’s broader economic transformation. We discuss how Vision 2030, rising non-oil growth, and strong regulatory support are accelerating the shift toward a digital-first, cash-light economy.

The conversation highlights the strength of Saudi banks, which combine solid capital positions and low credit stress with rapid growth in lending and digital adoption. We explore how online banking, real-time payments, and mobile wallets are becoming mainstream, supported by major investments in digital infrastructure and cloud platforms.

We also unpack the key technology themes shaping KSA banking today—open and embedded finance, fintech collaboration, SME-focused innovation, and growing use of AI to enhance customer experience, underwriting, and fraud prevention.

The key takeaway is clear: future-ready banks in Saudi Arabia will win by pairing scale and stability with digital agility, AI-led personalization, and ecosystem-driven growth.

In this episode, we look at Kuwait’s banking market and how it is steadily moving toward a digital-first, cash-lite future. We discuss how near-universal internet access, strong central bank support, and widespread use of mobile payments are accelerating the shift from cash and branches to digital channels.

The conversation explores Kuwait’s evolving payments landscape, where instant payments and modern POS and wallet ecosystems are reshaping everyday transactions. We also examine the growing opportunity in digital banking, particularly among younger, mobile-first customers and underserved SME segments, where seamless onboarding, simple lending, and value-added services matter most.

A major theme is the role of AI—improving personalization, automating back-office processes, strengthening fraud prevention, and enabling smarter decision-making. We close with a clear takeaway: Kuwait’s future-ready banks will be those that combine trusted payment rails, intuitive digital experiences, and AI-led efficiency to unlock growth in a rapidly digitising market.